Optical fibers may be used as transmission paths for optical signals in communications networks. Such optical fibers often must extend across many miles and large bodies of water. To protect the optical fibers, particularly in an undersea or submarine environment, the optical fibers may be included in an optical cable that provides many layers of protection. An undersea or submarine optical cable may include, for example, layers of strength members, tubing, a conductor, insulation, shielding, and sheaths depending upon the system environmental conditions.
Optical cables are often coupled to undersea devices such as joints that provide coupling to other cables, repeaters that provide amplification of optical signals, and branching units that provide branching of optical signals. To repair an optical cable, for example, one segment of the optical cable may be coupled to another segment of an optical cable using a cable-to-cable joint such as a universal joint known as a Millennia® Joint (MJ) available from Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC The conductor within an optical cable provides power to electronic equipment within certain types of undersea devices. When joining an optical cable including a conductor, an electrical connection may be made from the cable conductor to another cable conductor (e.g., within a joint) or a powered component (e.g., within a repeater or branching unit).
Certain underwater optical network architectures have created a need for separate conductive paths. For example, an optical network may include different powered components in different network nodes, which are powered with different potentials. A multiple conductor optical cable may be used to provide separate conductive paths, but coupling the optical cables to undersea devices presents unique challenges because conductive paths that are not terminated within an undersea device need to be brought across the device from one side to another. The optical cable should be coupled in a way that isolates the additional conductive path(s) from both the underwater environment and the internal hardware in the device. Moreover, there are difficulties providing an additional isolated conductive path without significantly changing the existing device hardware and coupling process.